Theodora - Final blog

We arrived after seventeen days and a few hours at sea. The first shout of “Land Ahoy” was heard about twenty miles out. This was discarded as a hoax but then shortly after it was agreed that we had land in sight. It was quite a strange feeling starting the engine and getting the fenders and mooring lines out. In fact so strange that a fender got dropped overboard, an excellent bit of helming from the No 1 saw us recover it and continue into the marina. The mooring went fairly smoothly apart from the momentary lapse of concentration by the crew as we came into moor and there were new people to talk to on the boats alongside us. The the rum punch trolley turned up and not a lot happened for the rest of the day.It is a trip that is very worthwhile doing if you ever get the chance. In many. read more...

Theodora - The evening of 11/12 - 121 miles to go.

Thank you to Bryony and Captain Nick Thomas for emailing answers to some of our questions. Unfortunately we cannot receive attachments so answers have to be in the body of the text please. I had, well none of us onboard had any idea that we had spent two weeks sailing through the Sargasso Sea.I think we are still seeking to find out where European eels mate....One of the more fearful features of an Atlantic crossing is supposed to be coping with the frequent squalls. Up until today we had only had to cope with about four of them and they had been all about rain and not wind. So, early this afternoon the sky behind us was dark and foreboding, there was definitely a huge squall coming. Rather weirdly we all got about eager and excited about this and prepared accordingly. Hatches were. read more...

Theodora - Probably the last entry..

It has been a slow night with the wind speed dropping below fifteen knots which means we have struggled to keep over five knots of boat speed. At the time of writing this we are just over two hundred miles out from St Lucia which is between thirty and thirty six hours away.We have been chatting amongst ourselves about what has surprised us about the trip. The common themes are how well we have lived with lots of excellent fresh food for the vast majority of the trip. We still have three cakes left to eat before we arrive, quite a challenge and amazingly we have loads of chocolate left, quite astonishing. The second thing we have all been struck by is the almost complete lack of wildlife, apart from flying fish. We have seen dolphins twice in sixteen days, all of us expected much more.. read more...

Theodora - 10/12

I forgot to leave our boat email address in case anyone feels like answering those questions I posted yesterday, it is: [email protected] night was going well, the fillet steaks were cooked to perfection and served with new potatoes mushrooms and peas and washed down with a glass of Pol Roger. Boat speed was up over seven knots what could go wrong?The helm. Around two in the morning the helm started to act in a weird way in that it became very heavy at the centre and very difficult to hold a course. The immediate suspect was weed because we had been passing great clumps of it. We tried the GoPro on a boat hook routine but it was too dark to see anything so we reefed in and bought the boat speed done to around six knots where the steering was more manageable. As soon as the sun. read more...

Theodora - Question that have arisen on the sea - 9/12

Today is Ed’s (the nipper)thirtieth birthday. Hw was allowed to sleep in and was met with happy birthday banners across the Bimini and a pile of birthday cards that had been smuggled on board with out his knowledge. He enjoyed the surprise. What he doesn’t know is that that there are two more surprises heading his way today. A birthday cake for tea time and a fillet steak supper which will also include a glass of champagne. What a place to have a birthday.Last night was dull, we tootled along slowly at around 4.5 knots which was extremely frustrating. However, we did have a couple of decent squalls. It’s really watching the boat and the Twizzle rig cope with these wind increases. At the start of one of these squalls we were in 9-10 knots of wind doing 4.5 knots the wind started to. read more...